We believe community engagement, participation and empowerment are key to successful adaptation actions at the local level. We are currently invovled with the development of a novelmarine monitoring toolkit with the participation of community resource monitors to inform local action and management. It has been piloted in North Efate, Vanuatu to allow communities to take ownership of monitoring their marine resources. Working closely with the Vanuatu Fisheries Department, the monitoring toolkit includes a standardised process for communities to use monitoring results instantly, translating information from their surveys into management actions that target key areas of concern. Using these methods, communities are able to adapt their traditional management to address the immediate and medium-term effects of climate change on their local marine environment. The observed additional benefits of this work include increased local action through community-led environmental awareness days, increases in the size of locally managed no take areas and new local ecotourism initiatives to generate revenue to support climate change adaptation activities. In the more isloated project sites in northern Vanuatu on Gaua and Vanua Lava we are able to take this toolkit and combine it with awareness sessions.